Young Rockets got taste of playoff-style basketball from Grizzlies

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As difficult as the Rockets consecutive losses to the Grizzlies were, Rockets center Dwight Howard said they could prove useful, especially with the potential that the Rockets will face that sort of slowdown, halfcourt style in the post-season.

“Memphis is a team that plays in the halfcourt,” Howard said. “That’s something we have to get better at as a team, learning how to execute in the halfcourt as a team. We’re great in the open court when we’re able to get up and run and get fast breaks and shoot in transition. Where we struggle right now is our halfcourt offense, especially executing in the halfcourt. That’s something we have to get better at.

“These are growing pains. Learning from experience is good for our team. We hate to lose. We were all (angry) about the last two games. But there’s some things that we learned from playing a team like Memphis. We’ll get better.”

The Rockets are the NBA’s fourth-youngest and fourth-least experienced team, made even younger with their oldest player, Francisco Garcia, out with an injury. That inexperience, Howard said, leads to the inconsistency, but is something that they can grow out of.

“We have a lot of young guys just learning how to play this game,” Howard said. “Everything comes in time. We’re going to have our growing pains. We can’t look at anything in a negative way. Just stay positive. We still have to play hard, go out there, play aggressive, but still understand we’re a team, a great team in progress. It doesn’t happen overnight. We’re going to have really good games. We’re going to have really bad games. That’s what happens when you play 82 games. But we have to learn from each mistake we make.

“It’s something we got to go through as a team. What matters is what we do once we get to the playoffs. We don’t want to sweep anything under the rug now. We want to get all the wrinkles out now. Once the playoffs start, we should be heading in the right direction.”